game of basketball has gone global and is now world's fastest-growing sport. Talented players from Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa are literally crashing borders as level of their game now often equals that of American pros, who no longer are sure winners in international competition and who must compete with foreign players for coveted spots on NBA rosters. Yet that refreshing world outlook stands in stark contrast to game's troubled image here at home. concept of team play in NBA has declined as, in aftermath of Michael Jordan phenomenon, league's marketers and television promoters have placed a premium on hyping individual stars instead of teams, and players have come to see that big-buck contracts and endorsements come to those who selfishly demand spotlight for themselves.Even worse, relations between players and fans are at a low ebb. Players are perceived to be overpaid, ill-behaved, and arrogant. Fans, paying hundreds of dollars for tickets, often act boorishly and tauntingly. This tension boiled over on night of November 19, 2004, at Palace of Auburn Hills, Michigan, during a Detroit Pistons-Indiana Pacers game, when players brawled with fans as much as each other in what was, in fact, a racial skirmish. When Pacer players entered stands throwing punches, they had truly smashed an altogether different kind of border.In aftermath of that sorry spectacle, regular-season television ratings declined for NBA games. Playoff-game ratings plummeted. Sales in NBA-licensing products sagged by a reported 30 percent. For millions of Americans who cherish basketball, love affair has reached a stateof crisis.Few people care as deeply and know as much about basketball as Harvey Araton, highly literate and well-traveled sports columnist for The New York Times. For many a season, Araton has observed the ballers, as players call themselves, at college tournaments, NBA, and Olympics. He has enjoyed a pressbox seat while watching great 1980s rivalries of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, transcendent career of Michael Jordan, and slow unraveling of game through 1990s until present season, as newly arrived players and league officials misunderstood and misapplied mixed lessons of Jordan's legacy. Calling on his many years of watching games, of locker-room interviews, of world-hopping reportage, Araton takes us to scenes of vivid play on court and to off-camera dramas as well.In this taut, simmering book, author points his finger at greed and exploitation that has weakened American game. And with uncommon journalistic courage, he opens a discussion on volatile, undiscussed subject that lies at heart of basketball's crisis: race. It begins, he argues, at college level, where, too often, undereducated, inner-city talents are expected to perform for benefit of affluent white crowds and to fill coffers of their respective schools in what Araton calls a kind of modern-day minstrel show. It continues at pro level, where marketers have determined that gangsta imagery provides for a livelier entertainment package, never mind effect it has on quality of team play. And where, moreover, players themselves, often both street smart and immature, decide to live up to thuggish stereotypes.HarveyAraton knows players well enough to see beyond stereotypes. He knows that for every clownish Dennis Rodman there is also an admirable David Robinson. For every Ron Artest, there is a Tim Duncan. Combining passion and knowledge, he calls on NBA to heal itself and, with a hopeful sense of possible, he points way to a better future.Unflinching, timely, and authoritative, Crashing Borders is beginning of a much-needed conversation about sport and American culture. For those who care about both, this book will be must-read work of season.